


Promise you'll remember that you're mine

by cutebutpsyco



Series: Ironstrange Bingo 2019 Fills [12]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, IronStrange Bingo 2019, M/M, No Fluff, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 23:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18398714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: IRONSTRANGE BINGO. FILL: SOULMATE ||And then, it happened, just when he was starting to lose every hope, even if he would have never admitted it aloud. He preferred to repeat that he didn’t care about his soulmate, he preferred to said to himself that he didn’t care about having a person made for him in his life. It was a lie, but Tony didn’t care. That lie was better than every other truth he could think about. It was better than the lie that crossed his chest.





	Promise you'll remember that you're mine

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a prompt by mistrssstrange on tumblr who asked: _Possibilities for “Soul Mate” Lies told by your soulmate show up on your skin. You get a vision of your soulmate’s worst memory the first time you touch. Where you have a timer of how long your soulmate has left to live. Scars will disappear when your soulmate touches them. Once a year you get to see what your soulmate is seeing._
> 
> I love all those ideas, but I choose the first one because is something I'd never seen before, even if also the "In Time" one was super inspiring. 
> 
> As always, nothing belongs to me, title from "Blue Jeans" by Lana del Rey (because if this has to be a depressing fic, we'll need a depressing song). Not betad.

_There was no other way,_ That was the first sentence that ever appeared on Tony’s body. It was huge, shaking, and crossed his chest, the last word over his heart. There were other ones, as cryptic, but, somehow, Tony had always felt a morbid curiosity for that single sentence. 

He knew what it was. A soulmate mark, every one of those was a lie that his soulmate was going to tell him and Tony was pretty sure that the other person’s body would have been filled with marks, knowing him. The ones on his body, though, weren’t as many as he imagined, but they weren’t few either. 

Few of them were the usual ones, but others were… weird, strange. _A bit chakly_ one said, and _It had been only a couple of week in an orange alternative dimension_ ran down his right leg and Tony had no idea of what that meant. But the one that shook Tony the most was the mark on his chest. He couldn’t understand, and he didn’t like to feel like that. 

He couldn’t even understand what that sentence meant, or why someone could say something like that to him. And since the moment he started to wear the Iron Man suit, he couldn’t help but think that he would eventually hear that sentence. 

And then, it happened, just when he was starting to lose every hope, even if he would have never admitted it aloud. He preferred to repeat that he didn’t care about his soulmate, he preferred to said to himself that he didn’t care about having a person made for him in his life. It was a lie, but Tony didn’t care. That lie was better than every other truth he could think about. It was better than the lie that crossed his chest. 

Especially when Stephen Strange said that Stark Raving Hazelnut was a bit chalky. It was a weird sentence, and the first time someone told him something like that. And Tony knew, immediately, that the Sorcerer who just showed them his shining stone was his soulmate. A fucking magic user. Great!

“Why would you do that?” He asked, and he was dreading the moment when an answer would have come. He didn’t even know why, and the moment he saw Stephen opening his mouth to answer him, he was sure which the answer was going to be.

“There was no other way,” He whispered. And Tony wanted to yell at him, to tell him that he knew it was a lie, told him he knew there was at least another way because he had spent the last forty-eight of his life staring at the words on his skin and knowing it was a lie. But he said nothing because the man just gave up the Time Stone to save him and they didn’t have time to speak about lies and soulmates. They could just hope that the Avengers could kill Thanos, even if Tony had lost hope in that.  
The confirmation of that came minutes later. 

**

Stephen came back to the world of the livings along with all the others who got dusted, but, probably, nobody would ever really came back from the Soul Dimension. It wasn’t just the idea of the ones that were mourning for them, it was that the place had been used for centuries as a prison for strong beings whose souls still were trapped in there. 

It took the Avengers almost two years to defeat Thanos and free the ones who had been Snapped and it had never been a happy time for neither of them. But when Tony asked him, he just told him that it had been a fun time in an orange wasteland. Because he didn’t want to tell him the truth. It was clear that he was feeling guilty for what happened even if Stephen didn’t really know him. 

He smiled, looking at the genius and detecting immediately the moment he became immediately too pale and he crossed the battlefield in rapid steps, helping him to stand just for the time he realized, in the beat of an eye, that that was painful for him to do. 

Tony’s arm wrapped around Stephen’s neck and a tired smile painted his lips. Stephen could see at least three different injuries on the other man’s body and his mind was already trying to find the best way to treat them. His eyes were becoming more and more out of focus. And the doctor didn’t like it at all. 

“Hey, hey, look at me, Stark,” Stephen said. They needed to go away from it. A lot of the Avengers were badly wounded, and the flashes from the people’s phones weren’t helping whoever hit their heads. The middle of Time Square wasn’t the best place to speak. “Stay with me.”

“Yeah,” Tony whispered. “Yeah. It’s you; I’m not gonna die on you.”

He said, between coughs, and Stephen could clearly see that he was coughing blood. Tony’s whiskey brown eyes closed and opened again, but it was clear that he wasn’t seeing anything and a moment later he was falling again against Stephen’s body who, somehow managed to have him seated on the asphalt. 

Stephen tried not to repeat in his mind the words Tony told to him. It was the first time he heard those, but it wasn’t the first he acknowledged them: those words had been on his skin for the past forty-two years and through every time loop Stephen put himself in. He knew what it was, he knew it was a lie, maybe a one of which neither Tony was aware of. 

“Please, please, stay with me,” He said, and he was crying, despite everything, despite people were looking for him and he hated to show his weaknesses in front of people he didn’t trust. But he didn’t care, not at that moment, not when his soulmate was dying and there was nothing Stephen could do to help him. 

He heard Peter calling Tony’s name from somewhere at his back and crawled in his arms the body of the man he didn’t even know he would have loved. Friday confirmed him, in the saddest and more broken voice he had ever heard, that Tony’s pulse was gone and the nanobots couldn’t help him even if she programmed them to act as a defibrillator. And he didn’t even have an idea of how long he stayed like that until Banner’s hand squeezed his shoulder softly. 

“Stephen,” The man whispered. “We have to bring him away from here. Do you think you can…?”

The Sorcerer nodded, while the Cloak flew around Iron Man’s body to help its Master to lift Stark, shielding them both from the small crowd. Wong opened a portal for him and Banner to walk through, to reach the Med Bay of the Compound. And Stephen couldn’t help to think that it was his fault. 

That maybe Tony still had years in front of him, if only he would have chosen differently. And while a part of him knew that lie could not be changed, he knew Tony died because of him. 

“It’s my fault,” He whispered, looking at Banner, who shook his head. 

“No, it’s not. We decided Hulk had to be the one to Snap again, but Tony just… It’s not your fault, Stephen.”

And Stephen had no idea why, but something of the little things he could have known from Tony told him that it was some kind of behaviour which wasn’t weird for him. And still, if Stephen would have made a different choice, if he would have chosen a future in which he ran away from Thanos, in which everyone but him died, then - nothing would have changed. It was his fault, anyway, he was the person who would have caused Tony Stark’s death, and he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for that.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are the air I breathe and the reason why I write, so make ur girl happy.
> 
> **wanna say 'hi'? do you have a prompt for me?** find me on [tumblr](https://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/).  
> find my entire ironstrange bingo card on [dreamwidth](https://myrcellabaratheon.dreamwidth.org/3827.html) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/511160).  
> 


End file.
